ed. What say
you, my Niccolo?"

"It is a pity his falsehoods were not all of a wise sort," said
Macchiavelli, with a melancholy shrug. "With the times so much on his
side as they are about Church affairs, he might have done something
great."

CHAPTER SIXTY SIX.

A MASQUE OF THE FURIES.

The next day was Palm Sunday, or Olive Sunday, as it was chiefly called
in the olive-growing Valdarno; and the morning sun shone with a more
delicious clearness for the yesterday's rain. Once more Savonarola
mounted the pulpit in San Marco, and saw a flock around him whose faith
in him was still unshaken; and this morning in calm and sad sincerity he
declared himself ready to die: in front of all visions he saw his own
doom. Once more he uttered the benediction, and saw the faces of men
and women lifted towards him in venerating love. Then he descended the
steps of the pulpit and turned away from that sight for ever.

For before the sun had set Florence was in an uproar. The passions
which had been roused the day before had been smouldering through that
quiet morning, and had now burst out again with a fury not unassisted by
design, and not without official connivance. The uproar had begun at
the Duomo in an attempt of some Compagnacci to hinder the evening
sermon, which the Piagnoni had assembled to hear. But no sooner had
men's blood mounted and the disturbances had become an affray than the
cry arose, "To San Marco! the fire to San Marco!"

And long before the daylight had died, both the church and convent were
being besieged by an enraged and continually increasing multitude. Not
without resistance. For the monks, long conscious of growing hostility
without, had arms within their walls, and some of them fought as
vigorously in their long white tunics as if they had been Knights
Templars. Even the command of Savonarola could not prevail against the
impulse to self-defence in arms that were still muscular under the
Dominican serge. There were laymen too who had not chosen to depart,
and some of them fought fiercely: there was firing from the high altar
close by the great crucifix, there was pouring of stones and hot embers
from the convent roof, there was close fighting with swords in the
cloisters. Notwithstanding the force of the assailants, the attack
lasted till deep night.

The demonstrations of the Government had all been against the convent;
early in the attack guards had been sent for, not to disperse